The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 3 eBook

kind enough. Such feelings as you have now described
are the lot of humanity. So you will feel when
I am no more, and so will your children feel when you
are dead. But your uncle will come back again,
Betsy, and we will now think of where we are to get
the cage to keep the talking parrot in, he is to bring
home; and go and tell Susan to bring the candles, and
ask her if the nice cake is almost baked, that she
promised to give us for our tea.”

At this point, my dear miss Villiers,
you thought fit to break off your story, and the
wet eyes of your young auditors, seemed to confess
that you had succeeded in moving their feelings with
your pretty narrative. It now fell by lot
to the turn of miss Manners to relate her story,
and we were all sufficiently curious to know what
so very young an historian had to tell of herself.—­I
shall continue the narratives for the future in
the order in which they followed, without mentioning
any of the interruptions which occurred from the
asking of questions, or from any other cause, unless
materially connected with the stories. I shall
also leave out the apologies with which you severally
thought fit to preface your stories of yourselves,
though they were very seasonable in their place,
and proceeded from a proper diffidence, because I
must not swell my work to too large a size.

II

LOUISA MANNERS

(By Mary Lamb)

My name is Louisa Manners; I was seven years of age
last birthday, which was on the first of May.
I remember only four birthdays. The day I was
four years old is the first that I recollect.
On the morning of that day, as soon as I awoke, I
crept into mamma’s bed, and said, “Open
your eyes, mamma, for it is my birthday. Open
your eyes, and look at me!” Then mamma told
me I should ride in a post chaise, and see my grandmamma
and my sister Sarah. Grandmamma lived at a farm-house
in the country, and I had never in all my life been
out of London; no, nor had I ever seen a bit of green
grass, except in the Drapers’ garden, which
is near my papa’s house in Broad-street; nor
had I ever rode in a carriage before that happy birthday.

I ran about the house talking of where I was going,
and rejoicing so that it was my birthday, that when
I got into the chaise I was tired and fell asleep.

When I awoke, I saw the green fields on both sides
of the chaise, and the fields were full, quite full,
of bright shining yellow flowers, and sheep and young
lambs were feeding in them. I jumped, and clapped
my hands together for joy, and I cried out This is

“Abroad in the meadows to see the
young lambs,”

for I knew many of Watts’s hymns by heart.

The trees and hedges seemed to fly swiftly by us,
and one field, and the sheep, and the young lambs,
passed away; and then another field came, and that
was full of cows; and then another field, and all the
pretty sheep returned, and there was no end of these
charming sights till we came quite to grandmamma’s
house, which stood all alone by itself, no house to
be seen at all near it.